Does Mobile Money Affect Saving Behaviour? Evidence from a Developing Country

Mobile money use and social health insurance enrolment among rural dwellers outside the formal employment sector: Evidence from Kenya

“…The use of an instrumental variable method would have addressed mobile money's potential endogeneity. Previous studies have used geographical proximity to a mobile money agent as an instrumental variable . We had data on self‐reported travel time and travel costs to the nearest mobile money agent.…”

“…We specified the probit model as follows: where NHIFenrolment i was the probability of individual і being enrolled in NHIF, α was the intercept, β 1 was the slope parameter while β 2 was a vector of slope parameters, MMuse i was the independent variable which took the form of one if individual i was a registered mobile money user and zero otherwise, and X i was a vector of controls which consisted of the following characteristics of individual i , namely, mobile phone ownership, sex, age, age‐squared, education, wealth quintile, bank account use, informal group membership, occupation, and health shocks. These controls were selected according to literature on mobile money and social health insurance . We added a dummy variable for mobile phone ownership in our model so as to disentangle the money payment system (mobile money) from the cell phone .…”

Africa's Pulse, No. 19, April 2019: An Analysis of Issues Shaping Africa’s Economic Future

“…They tend to resort to costly self-insurance mechanisms to share risks. Mobile money provides a safe method for individuals to deposit savings-especially for more immediate needs (Aker and Wilson 2013;Ky, Rugemintwari, and Sauviat 2018). Mobile money accounts can be used to transfer individual or group-based savings to a financial institution or provide an entrance for the unbanked to access financial services (Mbiti and Weil 2016).…”

“…Recent evidence from Burkina Faso shows that even if mobile money users do not tend to save for predictable events, they are more prone to save for health emergencies, especially among the rural population, women, and less educated individuals. The possibility of transferring money within subregions of the country associated with mobile money using a secure platform may explain the greater incidence of mobile money users saving for health emergencies (Ky, Rugemintwari, and Sauviat 2018). Changes in access to mobile money services have also raised the probability of using a bank account rather than other financial products.…”

Mobile Money Use and Financial Inclusion for SME Entrepreneurs in East Africa

“…In parallel with the diffusion of mobile money use, recent studies have investigated the impact of mobile money for households. The increasing use of mobile money has been shown to drastically reduce travel costs (Bangens & Söderberg, 2011), increase security (Wright et al, 2014), increase remittances and savings for unpredictable events, such as health emergencies, among high-risk groups (Ky, Rugemintwari, & Sauviat, 2017), and enhance financial inclusion and women's economic empowerment (Batista & Vicente, 2012;Morawczynski & Pickens, 2009;Munyegera & Matsumoto, 2016).…”